The Seminoles have been on one heck of a roll lately. They have been winning by wide margins all season. I’m sure a lot of people are wondering what is Jimbo Fisher’s secret? Is it the recruiting, the defense? What is he doing? Does he dance naked in Indian chief regalia every night chanting to the football gods?

So in this spirit of curiosity, we tried to look into Fisher’s impressive high output offense. We ran two simple correlations between passing yards and points scored and rushing yards and points scored. And we found something interesting.

We found a positive correlation of .58 between rushing yards and points scored, meaning the more rushing yards the Seminoles have in a game, the more points they score. However, we found a negative correlation of -.22 between passing yards and points scored. Technically this means the more passing yards, the fewer the points scored.

But common sense tells us this is not the case, though. There is no way a better passing offense hurts a team.

There are several explanations for this. Maybe the more the team passes the ball, the more turnovers they have? Maybe they have a harder time in the red zone when passing? Maybe rushing is Fisher’s secret? When looking at the data, the Seminoles’ passing yards numbers are still respectable even when they have a day of break out rushing. So, it would seem that the rushing offense is supplementary to the passing offense.

Either way, Jimbo Fisher needs to continue what he’s doing. He has turned a so-so team into a powerhouse and the reigning chieftains of the ACC. We will see if he can take his team all the way! Enjoy the chart below.

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Decision MediaWorks

Decision MediaWorks specializes in turning data into insight. We use the latest in data science to bring clarity to the hard choices made by anyone who follows Florida's unique politics, public policy and culture.

Our focus is on delivering insights that make sense out of publicly available data. We believe the success of any data science project rests on the ability to clearly communicate insights to decision makers.

Questions answered. Tough decisions made easier. That's what we do.

About Joe Clements

Joe Clements, President

Joe's first foray in analytics was estimating the amount of carbon stored in one acre of Ethiopian scrub brush as an intern for the United Nations World Food Programme.

After working for several years in political campaigns and as a legislative staffer, Joe saw that decision making is hard but that good data science (and the presentation of data) can make many decisions easier.

Joe was a Truman and Rhodes scholar nominee at the University of North Florida where he graduated with a degree in public relations. He is currently completing graduate coursework in political management and computer science at Florida State University.

In his non-data science life, Joe is married to Sara, fosters dogs, shoots guns, never misses a Jacksonville Jaguars game and tries to play golf.